In a result that disappoints, but which should surprise nobody.
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff | November 4, 2009
PORTLAND, Maine - Maine voters overturned the state’s same-sex marriage law yesterday, delivering a potentially crushing blow to gay-rights advocates after a year when their cause seemed to be gaining momentum with legislative and legal victories in four states. As the ballot counting continued well past midnight, the margin continued to grow - with 52.7 percent of voters in favor of the repeal - and the Associated Press called the contest in favor of gay-marriage foes shortly before 1 a.m. The “people’s veto’’ came six months after Maine’s law was approved, and one year after California voters rejected gay marriage by a similar margin.
"This is an amazing moment. It’s beyond words," said Mary Conroy, spokeswoman for Yes on 1/Stand for Marriage Maine, the organization leading the fight against same-sex marriage in Maine. "I feel energized, overcome, overjoyed for the family and the people of Maine. Clearly, this tonight is the people of Maine speaking."
Yes. Yes, it is.
...Gay marriage advocates, who gathered in a ballroom at a Portland hotel, spent much of the evening dancing and cheering, but grew more subdued as the hours passed and the votes favoring a repeal of the gay-marriage law pulled steadily ahead.
No on 1 campaign manager Jesse Connolly vowed to continue counting votes into this morning, but even he seemed to concede that they had lost this battle. We’re not short timers. We’re in for the long haul," he said early this morning. "We will regroup. This is about love and commitment and family, and so we’ll stay the course. And I ask you to stay the course with us."
With the news, supporters of gay marriage dissolved into tears. One couple, Susan McCray and Yvette Pratt, had married in Massachusetts, but every time they crossed the border back into Maine, where they live, their marriage was no longer recognized. "We thought we had it," McCray said, holding Pratt’s hand. As they walked out, a woman called to them, "It’s not over."
Gay marriage supporters, who had cast the question as a classic civil rights struggle, had hoped that Maine voters would become the first in the country to sanction gay marriage. It is currently legal in five states, but only by virtue of politicians or judges...
[...]Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage, in 2003, under a landmark decision issued by the state’s high court. Connecticut courts legalized gay marriage there in 2008, and then Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine followed earlier this year, either through legislation or court rulings. Same-sex marriage was briefly legal in California, until 52 percent of voters approved a constitutional ban last year. Maine has struggled with gay rights in the past. In 1998 and in 2000, lawmakers voted to ban discrimination against gays and lesbians but voters narrowly struck down those laws. The law was ultimately approved in 2005....
Given Maine's history, the result should have surprised no-one. The plain fact is, majorities will not choose to recognize civil rights of any minoritiy of their own free will. It simply will not happen. Whenever this sort of thing comes up for a vote, it allows the majority to say "We don't like you, we don't want you, and we think you are not human enough to share our rights." And they do, and they will. DC has one thing right; it refuses to allow people to vote on rights enumerated in its Human Rights Act, because they will use that opportunity to express prejudices and reject minorities, as Maine has done here.
Am I saying that we should give up, give out, give in? No, of course not. I am saying that we're going to have to go back and do this again and again and again, in all the same places and in different ways, before this is finally going to stick. And if history is any guide, we've only seen the leading edge of resistance at this point.
Some people like to refer to the Civil Rights era, likening this struggle to that one. But historically, looking at that struggle, the way this eventually works is for the laws either to come out of the courts -- or, more rarely, from legislatures that are ahead of the people they represent -- and then for the states to essentially get battered into resentful submission by lawsuits from affected minorities, with support from the court system which says to the state, "This will happen." That level of support from the courts and the legislatures does not yet exist for gay rights. It is, surprisingly enough, coming; it's just not there yet.
The one interesting note is that the percentages are similar to those in California, a far more religious state. This indicates that there may be a level of support that exists nationally, and which should grow over time. It may be that in another decade -- judging from Maine's progress in passing and maintaining nondiscrimination laws, it may be possible to pass and sustain these laws against this sort of discriminatory pushback.
...Conroy said most of the Stand for Marriage supporters are ordinary families who are worried that children will read stories about same-sex couples in schools, that teenagers will be encouraged to experiment with their sexuality, and that same-sex marriage will become widespread. She said that gays and lesbians have won antidiscrimination protections and should “leave marriage alone.’’
“No one’s antigay,’’ she said. “It’s just whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. . . . Not so fast."
My, it's lovely when people just stand there and lie to your face, isn't it? Are the people saying, "Not so fast"? Well, yes, clearly. But they're also saying, "We don't think you should have the same rights as the rest of humanity." And if that isn't "antigay", nothing is.
Posted by iain at November 04, 2009 07:48 AM
